BitTorrent index isoHunt.com will close next week after it agreed to a settlement the terms of which say it must “permanently cease and desist from directly or indirectly operating or supporting any part of the 'ISOhunt' system”.
The site has fought lengthy legal disputes with Big Content, which accused it of facilitating theft …

Re: "Remained faithful"?

Re: "Remained faithful"?

I doubt that anyone remained "faithful". Pirates will get their content where they can, and there are a LOT of other sites out there. A bit of a pyrrhic victory closing a site that hasn't linked to anything useful in 2 years...

Re: Meanwhile in Durkdurkastan......

Yep. My mate's Blu-ray player refused to play some Region 1 Penn and Teller DVDs the other day, so:

Option 1: Buy for ten quid the universal infra-red remote control required to re-educate the Blue-Ray player by means of codes (Though I wouldn't be surprised if there was an app for IR-blaster-equipped phones to do this automatically)

Option 2: Use ******* to decrypt the DVD and dump it the resulting VOBs on a networked HDD.

Everybody knows torrent site are there for the illegal content. The legal content and the search engine argument is there to muddy the waters. The real problem is the big media's control issues creating the market for pirate sites.

Lets say I just missed last night's episode of Elementary? I can stop watching it and wait for the DVD. I can forget that episode and watch it out of order later or I can just pirate the damn thing and keep watching the series.

Forget us poor peons in Australia. The series finished months ago before we get them here usually which is why Australian are the biggest pirates. We're also locked out of streaming sites unless we get a US credit card and a VPN and lie like hell.

@AC Friday 18th October 2013 12:01 GMT

If you are an aggregator in the US the last thing you want to do is ban illegal content. The safe harbor provision of the relevant laws applies only to unedited data. If you ban something your data is no longer unedited. Yes, it is a stupid provision and should have been a "good faith" clause instead. But it's what the jackasses in DC passed.

Serves him/them right!

I have no sympathy at all, they should not have been sharing. They should have been selling. If they had sold the files, they could have made themselves into billionaires and then they would have been able to buy a 'not guilty' verdict and everyone would say how cool and awesome they were. This is capitalism 101, guys.

Re: legal content download services

I totally agree. I'll be honest, over the years (before wide availability) I used to get mp3's because it was how I wanted the media. And there was an element of school playground swapping that used to go on at work.

These days since I've been able to purchase mp3s I've been happy to pay. And weirdly I don't swap these or share them with anybody. Just because I believe in supporting the system. If they trust me then I have a responsibility to respect that freedom (to play on what i want) they've given me.

However, I want a movie. I want it now. And the only two devices I have that I can connect to my TV are my android tablet and a rasberry pi of and an Xbox. But since I refuse to pay Microsoft to let me use it on the internet (Don't even get me started on that) I only have two options.

Now, streaming is s#it for decent quality movies. I want off line. There is only one way to get that. Now I personally don't pirate it, lazyness mainly, but I understand those that do *when* there is no alternative. Either way they lost a sale.

Movie companies need to grow up and trust the customers. There will always be those that will pirate and would never have bought it. Its not a lost sale. However, they are an opportunity to convert. Its easy, just given them what they want and make it better and easier than the alternative. And get the price right. I'm sure that service will be way more profitable than you think. Make it so piracy sites can't compete on ease, quality and reasonable price.

Most people don't mind paying - but crippling the paying customer doesn't hurt the pirates, it just makes piracy look a more attractive proposition!

While I'm no fan of the way content creators have stuck their heads in the sand...

... this guys' arguments seem pretty disingenuous to me. The damn site is called isohunt - its not like Google where they may index infringing material as a small part of what they do, most of what the website is about is searching for stuff that breaks copyright. He knows that. We know that. The rest is just attempting to swing a technicality.

Re: isohunt

Re: isohunt

Re: isohunt

I know what an iso is.

While my imagination is large enough to think of non-infringing iso images that can be distributed over the internet, lets not pretend the VAST majority of iso images that people were using the site to search for did not contain copyright material.

You may not like the law at the moment and want to change it, but you can't willfully break it, try to pretend you didn't and then attempt to claim some technicality to avoid the consequences.

“To what extent should a Web search engine be held to 'cause' infringement"

Latest block buster film for a £1 please

I would be interested if the film companies put up their own private tracker torrent site and you paid £2 a film or £10 a mth or similar and you could then download it on release day and keep it. Almost like Netflix which seems to be doing fine but I hate streaming (lack of bandwidth my end).

There is always going to be peeps who wont pay but I believe a lot of people would pay for a high quality legit rip but without the hassle of going to the cinema and sitting next to a jerk.

I presume they cant be arsed to try it because they have backed themselves into a corner now and it would look like a massive climb down, plus they wouldnt be able to help themselves from bolting on another 1hr of adverts before the film.

So...

If ISOHUNT are culpable for hosting content i.e. links to pirated materials... how can Google and eBay get away with it considering the amount of counterfeit and knocked-off stuff that they host links to?

Re: So...

That's essentially his argument and why he noted the failure of the courts which heard his case to apply the Grokster precedent.

I'm not a big torrent downloader so I'm not specifically familiar with the isohunt site. If he was operating in the US and he simply provided a bulletin board type posting system with no managing functions he should have been protected by the Safe Harbor provisions that Google et al use to escape prosecution. Now the Grokster decision also points to the proper manner in which to potentially prosecute such a case: establish that the site is a business and the business model depends on inducing copyright infringement. While I don't fully agree with the reasoning behind the Grokster decision (I think it allowed too much music which wasn't actually available to be claimed as protected by the RIAA) it is the current law of the land over here and that is how the case OUGHT to have been prosecuted. If it couldn't be prosecuted on those grounds, it should have been dismissed, possibly with no chance to refile under another theory.

Re: So...

Yes, that's right. If we can't have search engines that don't meet big media's approval, I want Google, Yahoo and Bing charged with promoting fraudulent goods and services. Moreover, they are directly making money from it, by selling ads and ranking to anyone who will pay.

Microsoft should actually be sued for endorsing fraudulent products, for selling "Microsoft Gold Partner" status to anyone who will pay. It's how those scumbucket registry cleaners and the like are marketed.

looking for netflix coupon

What the US govt seem to conveniently forget, however, is that many in the entertainment industry - particularly in the record side of things - actually SUPPORT so-called "illegal" sharing.

One example I can think of off the top of my head, is 'Fat Mike' Burkett, vocalist of the punk outfit NOFX and founder of Fat Wreck Chords. I don't know what the situation between him and the RIAA is at the mo, but he used to spend much of his time having FWC's name REMOVED from its books, only to find it readded in another guise ('Fat Records', 'Phat Records', etc). He's even taken the RIAA to court - and won - only to ding the C&D lasts for around a month or so before they're at it again!

He's issued several clear statements to the effect that FWC SUPPORTS file-sharing, as it's in-keeping with the punk ethos and exposes their artists' stuff to more people. He's even paid the court costs, fines and other associated fees of people convicted of 'illegal' downloading.

As as been already alluded to, piracy isn't killing music, the RIAA is killing music. I have limited resources, so I don't tend to buy albums anymore (not that I download them, I have Spotify) I'd rather pay for a gig ticket because most bands make feck-all from LP sales, it's touring that feeds and clothes 'em. Most of the bands I REALLY love most won't have heard of, which means that this disabled, workshy, scrounging, skiving pleb can afford to go see 'em.

Trouble with Spotify (and Pandora in the US) is that they DON'T pay artists properly, which is shooting themselves in the head, never mind the foot, as artists will soon withdraw their catalogues and then Spotify, Pandora et al will have feck-all to play! They receive something like 0.001c per play, so it's hardly a great revenue source.

Of course you've bands who think the mere mention of their name means they can charge a grand a ticket (not mentioning any names here, Mick, Ronnie, Keef). I saw tickets for Rod's last tour going (on ticket agent sites, not 3rd-party resellers, such as Viagogo) for £400 for the 'cheap' seats - and now that Macca has a new album out...

One day maybe the RIAA will ask the people it claims to represent before it starts stomping all over fans. Unless you know how the recording industry functions, there'll be a tendency to believe it's the BAND being an arse and, in 99.9% of cases, it never is, because most bands ain't greedy (unlike the 'One-Foot-In-The-Grave-Stones').